


The Final Hour

by blackwatchandromeda



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt, Injury, M/M, Mercy Killing, Possession, Sacrifice, Tragedy, why can't i write anything that's not angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 06:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12053286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackwatchandromeda/pseuds/blackwatchandromeda
Summary: They've done this dance for days, now, tracking each other through their twin trails of destruction. This is the final hour. This is the end, and only one of them will make it out.





	The Final Hour

They've done this dance for days, now, tracking each other through their twin trails of destruction. This is the final hour. This is the end, and only one of them will make it out.

Black smoke curls across the ground, rolling and roiling in twisted streams that snake through the bloody dust on the floor of the farmhouse. It's an idyllic red barn from outside, homely and traditional, but in sharp contrast the interior holds a trail of spattered crimson leading Reaper right to his prey. Sunlight shafts through a high window, letting light fall on the half-dissolved wraith striding through the space.

He revels in the smell, the tang of coppery blood mixed with gunpowder. It's familiar, one of the only feelings he can truly rely on, the sensation that invades every moment of his waking life. The other is pain, constant torturous agony that makes him scream and claw at his insides in his mind. In reality, though, there is nothing that eases the pain. He is cursed, and there is no cure.

Reaper's head snaps up as a grunt of exertion echoes through the farmhouse. _There_. His footsteps echo as he stalks his quarry lazily, luxuriating in the terrified feeling oozing through the atmosphere, the coiled fear of mortality that always appears before a kill like this. His prey is hobbled and incapable, so he takes his time getting there. The bloodstained path on the floor winds around to the side of the farmhouse, and beneath the ivory mask Reaper's ruined features twist into a grin. He steps around, turning, and there is the soldier dragging himself through the dust in spite of his shattered legs. The wraith lets out a bitter, caustic laugh, and the soldier freezes in his tracks.

"It was always going to end this way," he growls, voice rolling through the air like a storm. Unstoppable. Deadly.

The soldier says something weakly into the dust, a word, and Reaper fixes his eyes on him as he tries again.

"...Gabe," he chokes out, and the smoke around Reaper recoils at the name. "Please."

"Gabriel Reyes is dead," Reaper hisses, and raises one of his shotguns.

The soldier twists his broken body round, hissing in pain, turning that visored face to see the hawkish mask of the hunter. The predator. "I know you're still in there, Gabe. It's..." He cuts off, coughing, and the ground in front of him splatters with bright beads of blood. "It's not too late."

The wraith leans in closer, over the wounded, bleeding soldier. The light in his visor pierces Reaper's vision, shining bright with what he likes to think is fear. "It's been too late for a long while. Since you left me behind. Since you _abandoned me_!"

Something in the Talon agent's mind is screaming at him to stop, but he silences it with slashing claws and whirling smoke in his head as he sets the barrel of the shotgun to Jack's head.

The soldier's breathing halts, turning shallow, and he slowly, shakily reaches up to his face. It takes a few moments for him to gather the strength to click in the release on the side of his mask, and there's a gentle whoosh as he removes the visor and drops it with a clatter.

Reaper jerks in shock.

Jack Morrison, still Jack Morrison, stares up at him with white hair and a scarred face and -

"You used to call me Jackie."

"What?" Reaper murmurs, faltering slightly, thrown by the shining look in Jack's misty eyes.

"You used to bake churros when you thought I wasn't looking, and when I caught you you made me share them with you. You used to take Fareeha to soccer games and teach her the rules, and when Ana found out you switched to baseball."

Reaper almost flinches. "What... what are you doing?"

Jack's eyes are shining with tears. "I'm talking about you, Gabe. The man you used to be. The man you can still be. You still have a chance, Gabe, and -" He breaks off again, hacking up blood from deep inside his lungs. "You can still fix this."

Reaper hisses. "It's too late for that."

But Jack carries on, still staring at him, rendering Reaper completely immobile, stuck in the past, even as the words shudder through his bones and his gun slowly drifts downward.

"You taught McCree everything he knew, and when you ran out of things to teach him you... you adopted him. We adopted him. You always spent weeks making your Halloween costumes and got pissed when I turned up in a bedsheet. I know you, Gabe. I know - I know you can come back from this."

Reaper's face twists in a snarl, and he jams the shotgun against the soldier's temple. "Stop. Now!"

"And I love you, Gabe, I love you so goddamn much it hurts every day. I wish I could take us back and tell you it'd be alright but it _won't_ because we are broken and I don't know how to fix it." Tears are streaming down the ex-Strike Commander's face, running in rivulets down the ragged scar. "I can't let you carry on like this, though, Gabe, because I know you wouldn't have wanted what you've become."

"What are you talking about?" Reaper hisses, pushing the barrel further against Jack's head. The soldier doesn't flinch.

"Remember I love you," he whispers, and suddenly he's lunging and Reaper's gun goes flying as Jack pulls out a pistol and shoves it against his chest and _bang_.

The wraith goes still for one long moment, and Jack's eyes fill with sorrow as he slowly drops to his knees. Something inside Reaper is damaged beyond repair now, and his lifeforce is leaking away from him along with the voice in his head that tells him to kill. Reaper collapses fully to the floor as the smoke around him whirls, thinning and thinning before his eyes until it twists off into a coiled stream that shoots off into nothingness and leaves him lying on the ground, cold and drained and mortally wounded.

The soldier stares at Reaper through sightless eyes, his mask fallen to the floor, crumpled and broken. As he listens, the body stirs slightly, and there's a rustle.

"Jackie?" Gabe whispers, with a voice unused for six years.

Jack makes a choking noise and jerks, dragging himself over to the fallen man. "Gabe, I'm so sorry, I -"

Gabe reaches up with a shaky hand, reaching to touch Jack's cheek. "Thank... thank you, _cariño_."

"We can fix you, Gabe, don't worry -"

Jack's panicked reassurance is cut short as Gabe takes his hand, pressing it against his chest.

"This has always been yours," Gabe whispers. "Always. I... I want you to know that..."

Jack is crying fully now, unashamed, cradling Gabe's form in his weak arms, ignoring the pain from his bleeding body. "No, Gabe, _please_ -"

"I love you," Gabe says, voice full of love and affection and forgiveness and thankfulness and warmth, and he breathes out.

There is no inhale.

A scream rips its way free from Jack's throat and he starts sobbing, holding tight to Gabe's body as if he can somehow breathe life into it.

"Gabe, no, no, please _God_ no -"

But the ex-wraith remains still, cool, and the soldier's incoherent babbling subsides as sensation starts to overtake him. The world has lightened and so has his head, making him float, making him dizzy. The blood coating his hands is sticky. The metallic smell filling his nostrils fades as he falls gently backwards.

Jack lies there, looking at nothing as his breathing slows, as the floating carries him away, as the world dissolves and his chest stills.


End file.
